The vegan mom convicted of starving her baby girl to the brink of death says life behind bars is a nightmare of brutality, with inmates beating her and guards forcing her to eat fish and dairy against her strict no-animal-products beliefs.

“One of the biggest problems in a place like this is [the] haters – people who hate you for basically no real reason whatsoever,” Silva Swinton says in an emotional letter from the Albion Correctional Facility upstate.

Silva and her husband, Joseph, who’s locked up at Bare Hill Correctional Facility, have been singled out for abuse by inmates who know only that they’re guilty of a crime against a child, said their adviser, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry.

The pair, both 33, were convicted in April 2003 after a jury found the strict vegan diet they fed their daughter, Ice, amounted to assault.

That diet – ground nuts, teas and herbs, but no milk, made Ice so emaciated that she weighed just 10 pounds at the age of 16 months.

Silva was sentenced to six years in prison and Joseph to the minimum of five.

Daughtry said Silva has communicated with her husband only through letters since she began her sentence in May 2003 and has had just one supervised visit with her Ice and her son, Ini.

And, he says, both Silva and Joseph have not been able to adhere to the strict vegan diet that attracted so much attention last year, because prison officials only provide special meals for religious or health reasons.

“She’s struggling to adjust,” said Daughtry, pastor at the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn.

“It’s not the easiest situation. We’re trying to appeal the case and get visiting rights [for the children].”

Silva is also recovering from a cut on her arm requiring six stitches that she got while working in the prison, Daughtry said.

She also was struck by another inmate earlier this summer, said another adviser, Gail George.

“They were just coming back from the yard, and the next thing she knew, she was on the ground with her tooth chipped,” George said. “But she didn’t just fall down.”

George and Daughtry both admit the Swintons made bad choices regarding their kid’s diet, but insist the couple aren’t hardened criminals.

“I don’t know if they can survive those sentences,” said George.

Silva said: “For the past two days, I have been crying uncontrollably. They moved my friend to another dorm . . . so now I have no one to talk to.”